


triggered

by bell_yay



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: M/M, POV Bucky Barnes, Unrequited Love, civil war spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-08
Updated: 2016-05-08
Packaged: 2018-06-07 03:30:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6783409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bell_yay/pseuds/bell_yay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When they wipe you clean, that's all you are: clean. There's nothing, just a fuzz and a confusion that you can't shake, but there's no power over you, no control.</p>
<p>But when you bring a bunch of memories into the blank mind, when you fill it up with emotions that you can't understand any more, that you can't handle</p>
<p>when all you see is the face of a man you can't name, a man who caused you so much pain</p>
<p>when they become the only source of context for your ravaged psyche</p>
<p>the programming kicks in and you're gone, gone, gone.</p>
<p>
  <i>Ready To Comply</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	triggered

**_Longing_ **

You look at him from across the room. He’s standing with Peggy again, damn her, and his smile could light up the whole planet.

On second thought, don’t damn Peggy. She’s a sweet dame, pretty scary if you’re honest, but does a good job. And if she can make Steve look that way, well. It’s something you could never do.

“You’re gettin’ frown lines there, Barnes.” Dugan knocks on your shoulder and the rest of the Commandos snicker when you blush. You bury yourself in your beer. Morita’s face turns more sympathetic, and he waves at the others to stop their mockery.

“You really like that fella, huh?” he says softly. No one else in the bar can hear. You nod.

Dugan leans back and blows a sigh. He raises his beer.

“We’ve all been there, pal.” He grins, self-deprecating, before announcing a toast. “To _longing_.”

 

**_Rusted_ **

“Jesus Christ, Stevie, we can’t afford the fucking hospital.”

You wring your hands and Steve looks at his feet where they swing just above the waiting room tiles. You aren’t really upset about the money. Well, you are, a little. That’s a week of your wage, after all, but you’d do anything for Steve. No, you’re just in shock. It’s fine. You just need to get over it.

“I’m sorry, Buck.”

You rub your hand over your face.

“No, it’s my fault.”

Steve cradles his hand, palm-up, and you watch the blood ooze out of the cut. He’s looking at you. You look away.

“I’m just worried you’ll get tetanus or some shit, you know?”

Steve keeps watching you and you huff and tilt your head back.

“Never shoulda taken you down to the docks, anyway. I knew all their fuckin’ stuff was sharp and _rusted_.”

 

**_Furnace_ **

You hadn’t expected to see Stevie here. Heck, you hadn’t wanted to. He was meant to be at home, safe, gettin’ your pay checks in the mail and writing you sweet letters in return. Maybe shouting newspapers every now and then, when the rations weren’t enough.

He was not, under any circumstance, meant to follow you into the heat of battle.

But, damn, if he ever looks good.

“What’d they do to you?” you ask him late that night, once you’ve been wrapped up in a scratchy blanket and a cup of joe has been shoved into your shaking hands. You don’t want to talk about what they did to you.

Steve just shrugs.

“I’m bigger now,” he says.

“No shit, pal.”

He laughs.

“And I’m not sick anymore.” He spreads his arms wide, as if this is meant to impress you. “Even the asthma’s gone.”

You smile for him, but it doesn’t reach your eyes. All you can think about is how your Stevie doesn’t need you any more. He’s a big boy now. He doesn’t need your coddling.

“Feel my hands,” Steve says, holding one out for you to touch. “I’m not cold any more.”

He’s right. He’s insanely warm.

“Shame, really,” he laughs. “Can’t shock you with my freezing fingers any more.” He wiggles them tauntingly.

He doesn’t mention how you can’t use his poor circulation as an excuse to share a bed in the winter. Maybe he doesn’t care. Maybe he didn’t notice.

He grins down at his new body.

“Heck.” You’re right. He doesn’t know. “I’m like a _furnace_.”

 

**_Daybreak_ **

“What’re you doin’?”

Steve startles and looks over his shoulder. He’s visibly relieved that it’s you. He laughs.

“Nothin’, Buck. Just sittin’ here. C’mon.” He pats the concrete step next to him and it’s the invitation you were waiting for. You sit a little too close, but he doesn’t seem to mind. He’s caught in his own little world.

“Woke up and you were gone, fuckin’ punk.” You jostle his shoulder and he hides a laugh. “Freaked me out for a minute there.”

He grins and looks out into the golden streets. His eyes aren’t for you, you know that, so you look out at the buildings too.

“Just wanted to get outta the house,” he sighs. “Woke up. It’s hard to breathe sometimes. Helps if I get out here, in the fresh air.”

“You can wake me up, Steve, it’s fine. I can help –“

He laughs again, and this time he looks at you and you feel yourself heat up as if its midday, and not five o’clock in the goddamn morning and far too early for you to be awake, let alone out of bed.

Anything for him.

“It’s fine, Buck. I’m okay.” He looks away again but you keep staring at his cheek. He takes a deep breath and lets it out. “This is my favourite time of day, y’know? It’s quiet, and cool. Easy to breathe.”

All you can think of is the fact that you’re sharing his favourite time of day with him, and he didn’t even want you to.

The sun peeks over the horizon.

“ _Daybreak_.”

 

**_Seventeen_ **

“Do you ever think about what will happen if there’s another war, Buck?” he asks you one day after you’ve been let out of school and all the other kids have gone home.

“No.” You take a big bite of the chocolate bar and pass it back to him. He holds it and looks thoughtfully at the ground. You’re worried what he will say.

“I think about it a lot.” He looks at you. “Would you enlist?”

“I dunno.”

“I think it’d be the right thing to do. Fight for your country, y’know?” He nibbles the corner of the chocolate. "My dad enlisted. Maybe I’d do the same.”

You hate the way your mind is running through the different ways Stevie could die out there on the battlefield, each one increasingly gruesome, until you angrily snatch back the chocolate bar and take a comforting bite.

“Jesus, Stevie, you’re barely _seventeen_.”

 

**_Benign_ **

“You know people call you a womanizer, right?” He smirks at you as he hangs up his coat and your brow furrows into confusion.

“What?”

“I saw Bobbie on the street today.” He takes the apple out of your hand and sits down, taking an obnoxious bite before he hands it back. “He asked if I was still living with you.”

“And?”

“He wanted me to tell you to leave some dames for him.” Steve grins and pulls the pencil out from behind his ear, tapping it on the edge of the table. He knows as well as you do that you haven’t pulled a dame for the past three years.

“What, so I just talk to a dame now and suddenly she’s off the market?”

“Apparently,” Steve snickers. You like how he looks now, and you decide to take a risk.

“How would you describe me?” Your voice is softer than you meant it to be and he looks at you in surprise. He hesitates before he replies.

“Nice, I guess.” He shrugs. “Friendly. Kind. Bit of a pain, but, y’know.” He looks at you with a smirk and you roll your eyes. He suddenly stands up. “Y’know what, I actually need a dictionary for this, hang on.”

You spend the next half hour watching him chew on the tip of his pencil as he flicks through the thick book on his lap, occasionally laughing and describing you with a new and increasingly offensive word. His eyes suddenly light up and he taps his pencil against the page, grinning.

“I found the perfect word!” he chimes. “It sounds a bit boring, but, fits you pretty perfect.”

You peer over his shoulder at the word he’s underlined.

It’s not handsome. It’s not charming. It’s not love-of-my-life. You were stupid for fantasizing.

“ _Benign_.”

 

**_Nine_ **

“I can’t believe you got all those idiots to follow you,” you laugh, your head on his chest. You’re both a little buzzed on adrenaline and nerves and lack of sleep and you’ve collapsed in his tent. You downed your full hip flask to stop you thinking too much about the fact that you’re both on his bed, bodies touching, touching, touching in a fuzzy sort of way. You’re not as tipsy as you’d expected, but it does the job.

“Hey, people like me, Buck. It’s not that surprising.” He smiles at you and you remember that he can’t get drunk any more, that he’ll remember this. You blink sleepily.

“Yeah, but. You’re not even a captain.”

You start giggling again and he follows suit, more at your expense than anything else. You start counting off on your fingers.

“I guess it’s no wonder Dum Dum’s signed up. I mean. He got that name for a reason.”

Steve gasps with a smile and softly berates you, but his laughing ruins the effect.

“What? It’s true.” You count another finger. “And Falsworth’s British, so.”

“Bucky!”

“Morita and Jones seemed to have some sense in ‘em but who knows what they teach ‘em in Fresno or wherever the hell they’re from.”

You take a moment to look at Steve and you think that, maybe, he almost looks fond of you. You grin.

“Dernier doesn’t speak English so who knows if he even understood what you were saying. Wouldn’t surprise me.”

“That’s all of them, then.” Steve puts his arm around your shoulder and squeezes. “That’s not that many people.”

“Hang on, pal.” You hold up your hand and count off another finger. “Agent Carter. She’s got the hots for you, Stevie. Can see it a mile away.”

You didn’t mean for it to come out bitter, but it does anyway. He looks at you cautiously and you hastily put up another finger.

“And Howard Stark. Thought that guy was meant to be a genius or somethin’ but you got him wrapped around your finger. Flew you into some fuckin’ battlefield, fuckin’ ass,” you scoff. “And then there’s Colonel Phillips. He doesn’t want to like you, but if it wasn’t for him you wouldn’t be here, so he’s a Cap fan whether he likes it or not. That’s eight idiots you got battin’ for your team, Rogers. Done.”

“Oh, no you don’t.” Steve catches your hand in his own massive one and grins. “You’re forgetting my biggest idiot. My favourite one too, if you ask me.”

“Oh?” Your mind runs through the dames you’ve seen him talk to since he got here. “Who’d that be, then?”

“You.” A flush creeps up you as he leans down and kisses your forehead before gently placing your hand back down at your side. You don’t know if you’re dreaming. “There, now we’re done. All of my idiots. All _nine_.”

 

**_Homecoming_ **

You get drunk with Morita one night. You shouldn’t, alcohol’s short, but you do it anyway. The horrors of war are too much for the likes of you.

You down your whole hip flask for the third time this week and drape yourself on the table.

“Can’t wait to get home outta this hell-hole, man,” you say. He looks at you, long and hard, but you keep talking. “Can’t wait to get home to my little Stevie.”

Morita suddenly grins in understanding.

“Ah, you got a dame back home,” he says. “Same here. Whenever it gets real shit I like to imagine how she’d welcome me back.”

You laugh.

“How’s that?”

“She’d meet me at the railway station and I’d pick her up when I hug her, and then she’d take me home all over-excited and we’d eat a home-cooked meal or somethin’. Somethin’ like that.” He looks dreamily across at you. “What about you, Barnes? How’d your dame treat you?”

You know you shouldn’t talk about it, not really, it’s not safe, but you have the alcohol and the darkness and the cold table and your smile becomes a slacker.

“My Stevie, he’d pick me up at the station and he’d be all shy about meeting me there. He’d probably offer to carry my bags too, the little punk. Then we’d go home and he’d have a whole thing already set up or somethin’, and he’d have baked cakes with all his ration cards and then he’d blush somethin’ real pretty and show me all the drawings he’s done of me while I’ve been gone, show me just how much he missed me. And then he’d look at his feet and ask me to kiss him, and I say finally, finally, Christ Stevie do you know how much I’ve wanted this, and it’d be. It’d be.”

Morita’s looking at you something funny and you swallow back your words.

It’s only a few weeks later that Steve shows up himself. He barely pays you any attention. He has other things on his mind.

Morita nudges your shoulder softly when he catches you watching him again.

“Heh, so much for that _homecoming_.”

 

**_One_ **

“C’mon, Steve.” You tilt your head and smile. The lighting is dim in here and you tell yourself that’s why your eyes are hooded. Steve chews his lip.

He talked you into running a dangerous mission tomorrow. He should’ve known he could just say the words and you’d follow him anywhere, but he hasn’t learnt yet. Maybe you’ll teach him tonight.

“Buck, I dunno.”

“Guys fuck in the army all the time, Steve. God knows it’s been ages since you got some.” You frown. “Have you ever got some?”

Steve blushes angry red and scowls at you.

“Of course I’ve got some!” he says. “Besides, most guys do it because, y’know, there aren’t any dames or anything. But I mean, Peggy and me –“

“You mean you two are a thing now?”

“No! No, not yet. But I’d like us to be. So I don’t know if we should do this.”

You feel sickness and anger uncurl from your stomach. You make the bottle between you spin.

“Steve, c’mon. What’s a little sex between friends?” You frown. “I can just give you a blow job, if that’s what you want. You don’t have to give one back.”

Steve chews his lip again. You should be thankful he’s just considering it, be thankful he hasn’t left your tent screaming, be thankful for what you have. But you’ve always been the greedy type.

“No, Buck, if you’re gonna do this, it’s only right that I should do you too.” He sighs and stands up and you try to hide the eagerness on your face as he sits on the bed and undoes his fly. You begin to pry his thighs apart, too excited, when he holds up a finger. “But, Buck. This is it, okay? Nothing after this, ever again. Only the _one_.”

 

**_Freight Car_ **

This is where you’re going to die.

You have this strange sense of foreboding when Steve talks about it so innocently, like it’s some in and out job, easy said, easy done. You feel sick in that split second before you slide down that rope. You tell yourself, if you’re gonna die, at least the last thing you’ll ever see is Steve, just like you’d always wanted it to be.

You don’t die, as it turns out. You’re more worried about the fact that now Steve won’t be your last vision than you are that a bunch of fuckin’ HYDRA goons are dragging your sluggish body through the snow and into some bunker.

They speak to each other in German as your consciousness flickers in and out and you mutter Steve’s name to yourself over and over just to keep sane. Someone hits the side of your head and tells you to shut up. You do, but you let the anger boil in your gut in recompense.

You’ve picked up some German in your time in the trenches, so you guess it wasn’t all for nothing.

These are the last words you hear before you stop remembering anything any more except for that anger that boils and boils for long after they turn you into their own personal killing machine.

“No, sir, we didn’t get Rogers. But we have that lapdog of his, the one we ran the experiments on. Fell off the _freight car_.”

 

**_Good Morning, Soldier  
_ **


End file.
